Doing inspections with a thermal image camera is a bit art and a bit science. In this house I was called to find one problem, but found another instead!

This house had a basement with moisture problems in the past. A company was called to fix them and dry out the basement. It seemed to have worked. But the homeowner felt that the basement was very humid and wondered if the basement was leaking again. He was referred to me, called and I went over.

Not a single problem anywhere! No moisture! Nothing! And in the last month we have had lots of rain!

While I was downstairs the door bell rang. A neighbor wanted to talk over something regarding the neighborhood. While the homeowner and neighbor were out front, I helped myself to the rest of the house, with my camera!

The image on the left views the ceiling over the door leading from the kitchen to the rear deck.

And to the right is the corner of the high-ceiling family room!

Those lavender, blue and purple areas are moisture! And very current!

Going outside both spots had problems with the gutters - they weren't attached well to the house and both were full of debris.

It looked to me that these gutters had been like this for a while.

This homeowner had been looking down, and instead should have been looking up!

Well, now that these problems were found, things were looking up! I recommended that the gutters be repaired and cleaned, and because of the proximity of many large trees in back I also recommended the installation of solid gutter covers.

I did not go up to the bedrooms and these are the only issues I found on the main level. But the homeowner was impressed! He said, "I called you thinking I needed one thing but not knowing what I really needed."

My recommendation: you can't always get what you want, but when you try, sometimes, you just might find, YOU GET WHAT YOU NEED! And what most people really need is just a phone call away... And call an experienced one! And, as you know, the home inspectors who do thermal imaging are really cute.